


The Revolution Countdown

by juniorstarcatcher



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gingerflower, Gingerrose - Freeform, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Kiss, New Years, wow hux is an idiot who likes kissing who knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22057147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniorstarcatcher/pseuds/juniorstarcatcher
Summary: On the planet of Camyra, every year, the locals celebrate the revolution of their planet around their sun. They celebrate this night with singing, stories, dancing...and kissing.Just above the planet of Camyra, on the night of the Revolution Celebration, General Armitage Hux has managed to capture Rose Tico. But she came here to celebrate like the locals do. And she's not leaving her cell until she gets a kiss.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 15
Kudos: 152





	The Revolution Countdown

Armitage Hux grew tired of this game. But as his transport shuttle hovered over the small planet of Camyra and the sound of his own boots resounded through the halls of the ship under his command, it was—finally, mercifully— coming to a close.

Miss Rose Tico was finally in his custody.

Since their first eventful meeting aboard _The Supremacy_ , Hux found himself quite obsessed with the fiery, unafraid revolutionary with misguided ideals and stars for eyes.

No, not obsessed. That was the language of the romantic and the sentimental. The deranged. Hux saw himself not as obsessed, but as a righteous pursuer, searching The Galaxy for the one who’d escaped his justice.

If he’d noticed that he didn’t similarly pursue the former Stormtrooper FN-2187, he didn’t allow himself to examine that too deeply. Not that it mattered, of course. Not tonight. Tonight was about his victory. About Miss Rose Tico’s capture. About the moment when he would finally see her through the mirror-blue glint of the holo-cell wall and know that he’d won.

Oh, he’d seen her before, of course. Since their first…encounter…on _The Supremacy_ , he’d relentlessly pursued her, following every track and every lead that might bring her back to him.

Let’s see…there was that near-miss in the marketplace of Batuu, the chase through the Corellian ship yards, the pursuit across the lakes of Naboo that left him _completely_ soaked and left the escaping Miss Rose Tico doubled-over with laughter…Every time they saw one another, they exchanged fiery words and glances that were never far from Hux’s thoughts, never far from the whispering subconscious that reached out to him while he dreamed in his quarters every night.

He told himself that this was about justice. Bringing a fugitive from The First Order back to face the consequences of their resistance. Yet, with every step that brought him closer into the Brig, he felt the distinct rumbling of an ion cannon building in his stomach.

Excitement. Nerves.

He _wanted_ to see her again.

Carefully, stopping just outside of the pneumatic doors leading to the Brig, he checked himself in a nearby sheet of chrome fitting. His lapel wasn’t straight. His hair was slightly askew. His fingers rushed to correct both.

Straightening, Hux entered The Brig and dismissed the nearby stormtroopers for a routine patrol. He wanted to speak to the prisoner alone.

But before he could even step down to her cell, though, a voice cut through the quiet, canned air. Too bold. Too familiar.

“So, General Hux graces me with his presence. I was wondering when you would come to gloat.”

Was there something wrong with the ventilation fans in this room? Oh, no. That noise was the sound of his own heart thundering in his ears. Swallowing back the sensation, he strode forward, tossing his own chin skyward so that when he finally saw her, he would be looking down. It didn’t matter what his own revolting body was feeling anyway; all that mattered was this victory, this capture he’d been working towards since he first met Rose Tico all those cycles ago.

“Don’t you think I’ve earned it? I’ve hunted you across an endless forest of stars. A maze of planets and hideaways. And here you are.” He stepped in front of her cell, and finally caught sight of her through the haze of blue light separating them. “At my mercy.”

For a moment, he waited. He waited for the inevitable glow that would come from having her right where he wanted her. But the longer he stared at her small, curled-up body in the farthest corner of the cell from him, with her forehead tilted against the cool metal wall, the less certain he was that that feeling would ever arrive.

In his memories, in their previous meetings and partings, she’d always been this larger-than-life figure. A towering presence. Now, she was laid low—quiet and fragile.

And, to his surprise, he hated it.

“…Interesting,” Rose finally replied, not looking away from her wall, yet somehow still sounding stronger than he felt. 

“Interesting?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, but her hand immediately flew to her stomach, where she pressed into her ribcage. With the thick shadows of the Brig all around them, Hux couldn’t quite make out what she was doing. His hand instinctively went to his weapon. “Interesting that you think that’s an accomplishment. If I had half the resources of the First Order and _I_ was hunting _you_ , you’d already be dead.”

“Of all the insolent—” The fire beneath his cheeks cooled as he saw her curl deeper into herself, pressing both of her hands into her stomach now. He paused, and took a step closer to the barrier. “Why are you doing that?”

“Because I got shot, you Borktrax brain.”

Hux blinked. “You’re injured?”

“No, feeling great,” Rose hissed. “Thanks for asking.”

It would have been easy, leaving her there to die. A greater soldier would have done it. His father would have done it. And once upon a time, perhaps even now if it was any other prisoner, Armitage would have done it, too. He hesitated for a moment and even considered turning on his heel and leaving her to her pain.

But almost as quickly as that thought—Rose Tico, lying still and lifeless on the floor at his feet—crossed his mind, he was standing in front of the Brig’s access panel, just beside the holo-shield, entering his command codes.

From her place in the corner of the cell, Rose’s small voice whispered. It was the first time he’d ever heard her afraid. “What are you doing?”

“Lowering the shields. I won’t allow a prisoner to die in my custody.”

With that, the shields lowered, giving him free access to the cell. He tried not to think of the way she flinched at the sound, nor did he think of what his superiors would say if they saw him willingly assisting a Resistance Officer who, by all accounts, barely had any valuable intel to offer them.

Killing her would be best. Killing her was protocol, in fact. But Hux wouldn’t be the one to do it.

“Really? I’m so touched.”

Approaching her like a wounded animal, Hux inched closer and closer until he could kneel beside her balled-up form. Her breathing was heavy, labored, and her eyes gained and lost their focus rapidly, changing depth perception with seemingly each beat of her heart. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the medical spanner he’d kept on him ever since the destruction of _The Supremacy_. He’d been caught unawares then, helpless. He’d never wanted to be helpless again.

Not like Miss Tico was now, as she refused to respond to his nearness, choosing instead to maintain her broken posture. 

For a brief moment, as he thought of helplessness, his mind flashed to memories of his father. Meaty hands across his cheeks, around his throat. Fingers digging into Hux’s open wounds. The taste of blood in his mouth. Hux knew what it was to be helpless. 

He took extra care to touch Rose with gentle hands, soft fingers, harmless brushes. He ran the spanner across her body, watching its highly technical medical read-out provide instructions on how to apply care to the wound.

The stormtroopers who had brought her in would hear about this. Of that much, he was certain.

Still, as he watched Rose’s muscles relax—and the fear in her eyes recede as she realized he truly wasn't going to hurt her—he scrambled to cover up any indication he might have given of a soft heart. She couldn’t see the cracks in his armor; he couldn’t allow that.

“You are an excellent engineer, if your records are any indication,” he sniffed, as the device in his hand continued its scan. “It would be a loss to The First Order if you perished before your potential could be achieved.”

“You think I’m excellent?”

It took him a long moment before he could think of an answer to that that didn’t reveal something he didn’t want her knowing…or something he didn’t want to know about himself. His hand tightened around the spanner until it beeped annoyedly in his hand. “…In a manner of speaking.”

The read-out on the device instructed him to remove all cloth from the device’s immediate area, but the gown Rose Tico wore didn’t allow him to simply slide the fabric up as he might have with a tunic or a shirt. Capturing the finger of his left glove between his teeth, he pulled the fabric from his hand, and used his bare fingertips to move some of the blown-away fabric apart, giving the machine enough skin-space to complete its scan.

The blaster-mark was a mere graze, a nick of electro-pulse energy. A little time under the spanner’s mechanical work would have her better soon enough. Still, Hux’s fingers trembled as they traced around it.

Even worse, Hux felt sparks electrify him with every small bit of contact that his skin made against hers.

“So,” Rose breathed, adjusting beneath his touch. He sensed her eyes upon him; she was searching him, just as she would a broken piece of machinery she wanted nothing more than to fix. “You aren’t the big, bad monster everyone says you are. You have a soft spot for engineers. That must be why you’ve followed me halfway across the galaxy.”

“I do not have a soft spot, not for anyone or anything.”

“Then why are you saving my life?”

“I don’t have to answer any of your questions. You are my prisoner.”

He could almost hear her lips curling into a smirk as she spoke. “Not for long.”

“So arrogant,” he tutted, careful to keep the spanner still even as he shook his head. A smile tugged at his own lips. “Truly, the Resistance is a waste of you and your spirit.”

For a moment, a fantasy flooded his mind. Rose beside him, outfitted in the fine silks and jewels of a First Order General’s wife. He would lead; she would be his loyal confidante and follower.

The image dissipated as quickly as it materialized. No. It wasn’t right. Something about the dream of Rose kneeling at his feet on the deck of _The Finalizer_ , Rose wearing the symbol of The First Order cast in Osmium around her neck, Rose with gloved hands and calculating eyes…It felt less like a dream and more like a nightmare.

For a long moment, they sat in silence as the machine did its work. Small, metallic arms administered a numbing concoction of some sort and went to work stitching together Rose’s wounds as Hux waited and watched beside her. In the stillness and silence, he could hear the clacking of mechanical parts within the spammer; hear the roar of something going on just down below them, planet-side. The people of Camyra lived in the upper decks of towering skyscrapers and sky-tall trees; here, just above the planet’s surface, the gratings linking the ship with the outside world could catch any amount of ruckus.

Through it all, Rose’s attention never left his face. Despite the chill in the conditioned air of the Brig, he could feel traitorous heat rising in his cheeks.   
  
Eventually, dark eyes narrowed at him and she asked, not unkindly, “Why are you here?”

“You are my prisoner. I am your host. It’s only right that I should ensure your welfare and oversee your captivity.”

Who was he trying to convince?

“No, I mean…” Rose gestured to the wall-grate above them. “Why are you here right now? Why aren’t you at a party? I’m sure a big, important general like you could have swung an invite.”

Hux rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been to a party his entire life. His father wasn’t one for celebrating and making merry, especially not when Hux, his burden, was around. “I don’t _party_. Besides, there is nothing to celebrate. The mighty First Order captured a member of The Resistance. As you say, we should be doing this every day.”   
  
“No…I mean, we’re over Camyra. Aren’t you going to a Turning Day Celebration?”

Millions and millions of data logs, and Hux hadn’t ever heard of such a thing. Immediately, alarm bells went off in the back of his mind, urging caution, but when Rose breathed beneath his hands, awaking every one of his senses, he knew he couldn’t resist the bait.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar,” he said, barely opening his mouth.

“The Camyrans believe that, in the ancient times, their world was plunged into darkness for a thousand years. Now, every time their planet reaches one rotation around its sun, they host a celebration. You can probably hear them now. Music. Dancing. Tales of Great Victories from the rotation they just completed.” A small hand, bloodied and rough, reached out and touched Hux’s chin; he was forced to meet her eyes. Eyes like an endless sea of stars, one he wanted nothing more than to learn how to navigate. “It’s a celebration of hope, hope for tomorrow. They call it The Revolution. You know, like a planet’s revolution?”

The medical droid beeped that its work was complete, but Hux barely registered it. Instead, he was trying to memorize the way she smiled at him. The way the stars in her eyes danced with the light of a supernova, the way those lips…her lips…Oh, those lips…

When was the last time someone had smiled at him?

Before he could stop himself, Hux’s tongue darted from between his teeth, and his licked his own lips. Want awakened inside of him.

“I see.” He clenched his jaw. He swallowed, hard. Anything to stop the want from spreading. Anything to keep the desire to kiss her at bay. “And how does one celebrate this Revolution?”

“They kiss.”

Hux blinked. Did she…She couldn’t know what he’d been thinking, could she? Could she sense the way his breath shallowed, the way he know knew every small line in the soft fabric of her lips? “What?”

Rose picked up the small spanner and moved it aside. With some difficulty, she pulled herself to sitting. Now, their lips were closer than ever. So close. _So_ _close_. “At exactly midnight, they find someone and kiss them. It’s supposed to be a physical promise to bring love into the future.”

“A kiss, you say?” Hux asked, his voice tight. His heart racing. His want undeniable.

“Yeah,” Rose said, a small smile dancing across her pretty features. “Can you hear them counting?”

Yes. He could. There, above all of the other sounds, he could hear the unified chanting of the settlement below them as they called out in one voice. _Yher! Trehr! Nycs! Oher…!_

Armitage Hux didn’t know the first thing about the Calmyrans or their language. He couldn’t count in their tongue; he didn’t know their traditions. All he knew was that when Rose Tico’s eyes flickered down to his lips, he was lost to her.

In one smooth motion, Rose’s lips found his, and they crashed together in a tangle of limbs and desire. He responded hungrily to the kiss, drinking in the sweet, bitter taste of her. He wanted more and reached up to cup her face, tenderly pulling her in. He could not remember the last time someone—anyone—touched him except out of anger. Her kiss explored him as though she wanted to know him, Armitage, and not the fearsome General. He relaxed into that feeling, and allowed her to search him, to understand him on this most basic, secret of levels. As her own hands followed the lines of his lapel down, down, down, they reached—

Right into his pocket. Where he kept his Command Chip. His heart sunk.

Before he could react, Rose Tico was on her feet and across the barrier from him, leaving him alone in the cold cell with nothing but a spent medical spanner and the burning, needy wake of her kiss.

“What are you doing—!”

In a flash, the command chip was in the keypad and Rose had entered the code—damn him for not covering the slip of numbers earlier when he’d entered it in the first place. The blue wall shot up between them, locking him in.

“I’m sorry about this, but I’ve got a party to get to.”

“Release me at once!” Hux staggered to his feet. Was it possible she had poison on her lips? He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt this dizzy. Or was this just how kissing left you? Breathless and desperate for more? “You can’t just leave me here.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” Rose made herself busy unlatching a secure panel from the nearby wall, where she could easily use his chip to override the systems she would need to make good her escape. Hux could do nothing but watch. Nothing but watch and want and wish things were different. “There’s still hope for you yet, General.”

“What?” He scoffed, adjusting his coat as if that could rid him of the ghost of her touch. Giving into rage, he tried as best he could to cover up the feelings raging within him. “Hope that I could become Resistance, like you?”

“Maybe.” Rose flipped one final switch and the ceiling panel above her dropped, revealing an escape ladder that would eventually lead her to the hangar bay. With her boot on the first rung, though, she stopped, made eye contact with the seething General, and smiled. Not smirked. Smiled. “Last time I checked, monsters can’t kiss like that. They don’t have the heart for anything that tender.” 

Perhaps it was the lights of the explosives outside—another feature of the Camyran’s celebration, no doubt—but he would have sworn he saw her blushing. Perhaps…perhaps the kiss hadn’t been entirely a ploy after all.

“Happy Turning Day, General Hux. A new revolution is beginning.”

With that, she disappeared into the body of the ship, leaving Hux quite alone with his thoughts. A dangerous place to be. He glanced out of the small window of the cell, where the Camyrans lit off explosive, colored lights and sang their native songs, celebrating the start of something new. The entire affair was quite beautiful, actually, and he pressed himself to the glass to drink in the sights and sounds as best he could.

In his line of work, Hux understood and appreciated the military application of explosives. He’d never before stopped to consider how they might be used in celebration. Or how they might belong not on a battlefield, but between the lips of two enemies who craved more than that.

Yes. Miss Rose Tico was right. A new revolution _was_ beginning. And perhaps—just perhaps—it was beginning in Armitage Hux’s heart. 


End file.
